Paint is your weapon: hands-on with Epic Mickey on Wii

Mickey Mouse may be a renowned animated film star, but his video game career has been spotty. Epic Mickey—developed by Junction Point, the studio headed up by Deus Ex producer Warren Spector—will mark the mouse's first starring game role in quite some time, and it looks like it might be his most interesting appearance.

Combining nearly a century of Disney history with a morality system and a gameplay mechanic that lets you both destroy and shape the world around you, Epic Mickey looks ready to create a whole new generation of Mickey Mouse fans.

Though we were given few details on the actual storyline, the game takes place in a world called the Wasteland, which is inhabited by forgotten Disney characters. There are three different types of areas you will explore, each of which offers a different style of play. The demo we played started off in one of the exploration sections, which in a lot of ways resembles a town from an RPG: there are characters to meet and shops to enter.

This particular scene—which we were told takes place about halfway through the game—was populated by pirates from the animated version of Peter Pan. Here you can talk to characters to take on quests and explore the area, platforming style. Each task you take on can be completed in different ways. For example, at one point you need to get a tiki mask from a shop owner. You can either purchase it outright or sneak around the back and take it. We were told that decisions like these would affect not only how Mickey evolves throughout the game, but also how other characters view him. However, none of this was apparent in the brief demo.

The central mechanic of the game is centered on paint and thinner, which Mickey can use to shape the world around him. Using the Wii remote and Nunchuk combo, you can shoot thinner with your left hand and paint with your right. Paint, as you'd expect, lets you create things. So, for example, you might be going through a platforming sequence and come across a missing platform. You simply need to give the phantom platform a splash of paint and then you can jump on it. Similarly, some areas will conceal hidden routes or items, and dousing them with thinner will reveal what's hidden.

What you can interact with using the paint and thinner is always very clear. Things that could use a coat of paint appear as translucent; walls and objects that can be removed with thinner are discolored.

In addition to the exploration zones, there are also action sections, which feature an emphasis on combat and puzzle solving. Each scene features a main goal, as well as secondary, optional goals. In the demo, the main goal was to revive an old sunken pirate ship so that it could be used again. To do this, you have to locate three anchors and destroy them.

As in the exploration section, you're given different options when it comes to how you actually go about doing this. For example, you can get to one of the anchors, which is located in a cave, by distracting the enemy guarding it. You simply fire a television in his direction and he'll sit down, transfixed by the screen, giving you enough time to remove the anchor with a little bit of thinner. However, if he sees you, he'll drop a gate, forcing you to access the cave in a different way. In this case, you can climb up to the top of the cave and remove the floor beneath you with a bit of thinner, allowing you to jump down inside.

The combat is these sections is fairly simple. You can fire paint and thinner to slow down enemies, and Mickey also has a spin attack which you can pull off via a quick shake of the Wii remote. You also have the option to not engage in combat at all. Again, were were told that these decisions—how you tackle a puzzle, if you avoid combat, etc.—will impact the game's morality system.

There's also a third type of area in the game. In between different exploration and action zones you'll get a chance to play through a simple 2D, side-scrolling stage based on a classic Disney film. In the demo, this took the form of the legendary Steamboat WIllie. This scene was short and fairly easy, but provided a nice break in the action.

As a mostly 3D platform game, Epic Mickey controls well. The camera only rarely needs adjusting—which you can do with the d-pad on the Wii remote—and having the paint and thinner assigned to different hands feels very natural. The game looks great. While the 3D portions are solid, with a nice stylized look, it's the cut-scenes and 2D sections that really impress. Every time you go into a building the game shifts to 2D, and you'll be treated to gorgeous painted backgrounds. Meanwhile, the cut-scenes feature a unique art style that resembles a painted animation storyboard.

From what we played, Epic Mickey looks like it has the potential to be one of those rare games that can appeal to both a young and older audience. The game plays and looks solid, so the only real question is how the morality will play out. We were told that Mickey is always a hero no matter what you do, but hopefully there will be quite a bit of variation as to what type of hero you develop him into.